Brisbane’s hopes of Eric Hipwood playing a part in this year’s finals campaign are up in smoke.

It has come to light that the big forward has a partial tear in his ACL and has no hope of returning this year ... even if the Lions somehow recover from Friday night’s loss to Geelong and make the grand final.

It was an unexpected blow for the Lions.

Hipwood had been listed as having a calf injury but, when he recently went to have scans, there was a shock twist in the results.

The results came back and showed the partial ACL tear.

While it is unclear when he tore the ACL, 7NEWS reporter Andrew McCormack said it may have happened months ago.

“Understand Eric Hipwood was playing with knee soreness as far back as mid-late April,” McCormack said.

“Potentially played as many as 16 games w

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